BLUNT. Madam President, first of all, this is the first time I
have spoken on the floor when you were in the chair. Welcome to the
Senate and welcome to the presiding chair.
I want to talk for a few minutes today about a baseball great, a
Missouri great, Stan Musial, who passed away on Saturday at the age of
92. Stan Musial was born in November 1920 in Denora, PA. His title was
Stan ``The Man.'' He was the youngest of six children. When he wasn't
called Stan ``The Man,'' he was just a guy who worked at a company as a
young man, whose dad was a Polish immigrant, whose mother was of
Czechoslovakian ancestry, and whose dreams were probably not to become
a professional baseball player but who was, indeed, a great athlete
from the very start.
In his remarks, when he presented Stan Musial the Medal of Freedom in
2011, President Obama said the following:
Stan matched his hustle with humility. He retired with 17
records--even as he missed a season in his prime to serve his
country in
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the Navy. He was the first player to make--get this--
$100,000. Even more shocking, he asked for a pay cut when he
didn't perform up to his own expectations.
I don't think that August Busch gave him the pay cut--again, a
quote--but I have read the story where Stan Musial was holding out for
a pay package somewhere in the mid-90s and August Busch, Jr., who not
long before that had bought the Cardinals, called him into the office
and said: I'm never going to pay you 90--whatever thousand dollars he
was asking for. He said: I'm going to pay you $100,000, and you are
going to be the first baseball player to make $100,000.
Stan Musial played for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963, the only
Major League team he played for. He entered the majors in 1941 as the
fifth youngest player. He ended his career in 1963 as the third oldest
player. He had a record of 24 times being named to the Major League
Baseball All-Star team. He won seven National League batting titles,
three National League Most Valuable Player awards, and he led the
Cardinals to three World Series championships in the 1940s.
Stan Musial--No. 6--had a batting average of at least .300 in every 1
of his 17 seasons--a .300 hitter for every 1 of his 17 seasons. His
lifetime batting average was .331. He batted .330 in the year before he
decided to retire. He had 3,630 career hits, hitting 1,815 hits in St.
Louis at Sportsman Park and Busch Stadium, and he hit another 1,815 on
the road. He played as well at home as he did away from home. He missed
the entire 1945 season while he was serving in the Navy.
It was a fan at Ebbet's Field--with the Dodgers playing at Ebbet's
Field--who groaned as he came to the plate one time in a game--he was
always particularly good against the Dodgers. The fan said: Here comes
the man. And from that point on, his nickname was Stan ``The Man.''
I had a chance to sit by Tommy Lasorda at a luncheon a few years ago
after I had read a biography of Stan Musial. Tommy was sort of the
longtime Dodgers manager who was a player when Stan Musial was playing,
and he said he thought Stan Musial was the best ballplayer he ever saw
play, and he was death on the Dodgers. The Dodgers fans liked him, but
it was a real rivalry.
Stan was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame the first year he was
eligible, in 1969, and he would be one of the great ambassadors to
baseball for the rest of his life. When he retired in 1963,
Commissioner Ford Frick said:
Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands
baseball's perfect knight.
Stan Musial became an American icon throughout ballparks and over the
radio in the 1940s and 1950s. KMOX, in the 1960s, had a booming signal
that went almost all the way to the west coast and covered a lot of the
South, and the St. Louis Cardinals were the furthest south of any
baseball team and the furthest west of any baseball team. Because of
that, Stan Musial played on a club that, in many ways, became America's
team at that time.
I can remember growing up in southwest Missouri on a dairy farm, and
particularly late at night when we were hauling hay--and I can remember
this when I was 10 or 12 years old--and whoever was in the truck must
have been almost deaf because the driver would have the radio turned as
loud as you could turn the radio up, and the St. Louis Cardinals game
would be coming out of both windows as we were out there working in the
fields or, if we weren't working in the field, we would be sitting on
the porch somewhere listening to the Cardinals play, and there was no
greater Cardinal than Stan Musial.
Bob Gibson, another great Cardinal and Stan's teammate and fellow
Hall of Famer, said:
Stan Musial is the nicest man I ever met in baseball.
And Bob Gibson went on to say he didn't particularly associate nice
with baseball, but he associated nice with Stan Musial.
Bob Costas had this to say about Stan Musial:
Stan Musial didn't hit in 56 straight games. He didn't hit
.400 for a season. He didn't get 4,000 hits. He didn't get
500 home runs. He didn't hit a home run in his last at bat,
just a single. He didn't marry Marilyn Monroe; he married his
high school sweetheart. His excellence was a quiet
excellence.
ESPN titled Musial the most underrated athlete ever. Only Hank
Aaron--thinking about the things Stan Musial didn't do--had more runs
than Stan Musial and extra base hits. Only Tris Speaker and Pete Rose
had more hits. And only Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds created more runs.
But Stan Musial was at the highest levels in all of those areas.
Writing in the St. Louis Post Dispatch this week, Bernie Miklasz
wrote:
Let's celebrate Musial's extraordinary life and be thankful
for his enduring presence through the decades. Let's keep it
simple in honor of this remarkably uncomplicated man. There
has never been a more perfect union, a better relationship
between an athlete and a town, than Stan Musial and St.
Louis. From the time Stan took his first at-bat as a
Cardinal, until his death Saturday at his home in Ladue, he
was part of the community's soul for 71 years, 4 months, and
2 days.
Many stories about Stan Musial have been told, but I want to mention
three that Bernie mentioned in that same article. He talked about when
Musial was first inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame--as I said
earlier, as soon as you could possibly be inducted. It was an overcast
day in Cooperstown. The crowd was quiet, subdued, and a little bit put
off by the day. Moments before Musial's official ceremony, the clouds
got out of the way and the sunshine emerged, and Dizzy Dean's widow
said: ``Stan brought the sun. He always does.''
In the 1960s, a second story emerged of Musial and other Major League
stars visiting U.S. troops in Vietnam, and they went to the military
hospitals to console the wounded soldiers. One seriously injured
soldier looked up at Musial from his hospital bed and said: ``You're
the best.'' And Musial's response was: ``No, you are.''
Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Joe Black, an African American, told a story
about being racially taunted by players in the St. Louis dugout during
a game. Musial, who was batting at the time, and facing Joe Black,
stepped out and angrily kicked the dirt to display his disapproval of
his own teammates. He waited after the game to tell Black:
I'm sorry that happened. But don't you worry about it.
You're a great pitcher. You will win a lot of games.
Black said Musial's support helped him gain the confidence he needed
to become a top pitcher.
The fourth and last story Bernie told was of legendary center fielder
Willie Mays, who frequently talked about Musial befriending African-
American players, relating that at an All-Star game black players were
being ignored by the other players. Mays said:
We were in the back of the clubhouse playing poker and none
of the white guys had come back or said, ``Hi'' or ``How's it
going?'' or ``How you guys doing?'' or ``Welcome to the All
Star Game.'' Nothing. We're playing poker and all of a sudden
I look up and here comes Stan towards us. He grabs a chair,
sits down and starts playing cards with us. And Stan didn't
know how to play poker! But that was his way of welcoming us,
of making us feel a part of it. I never forgot that. We never
forgot that.
Musial didn't make a lot of fiery speeches. He didn't ``lead'' a
movement or try to promote himself as an angelic humanitarian. He just
did good things.
There is one last story, a love story, between Stan and his wife Lil.
This may be the best Musial statistic of all. They were married for 71
years, 4 months, and 2 days until Lil's death on May 3, with Stan
following her in January.
I listened to KMOX from the hay truck I talked about earlier, like
lots of other Cardinals and Musial fans, but I remember the first time
I saw Stan Musial play at Sportsman Park. I remember the first time, 30
years later, I actually met him, when I was the Secretary of State in
Missouri. Getting to meet Stan Musial was about as good as it got even
then. I remember hearing him play ``Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' on
his harmonica.
Baseball was lucky to have him, Missouri was lucky to have him, and
the Cardinals and St. Louis were lucky to have him, and I am pleased to
be here today to say how much we appreciate Stan Musial.
I am also pleased to be joined by my colleague from Missouri, Senator
McCaskill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
